Thank God, The Carmichael Show Is Coming Back

One of the weird things about television in 2016 is how guilty it makes you feel all the time. There's more out there than anyone could conceivably watch, and for every hit series that takes off with audiences, critics, or both, four more are doomed—and the doomed shows are often quite good too. Taken in conjunction with the way we discuss entertainment over social media, it's easy to feel like you're not just supposed to watch good shows anymore, you need to support them. Which, in turn, makes every new recommendation seem like a chore, because streaming services like Netflix and Hulu make it feel compulsory that you watch every episode.

Some shows, thought, are a joy to get behind—like The Carmichael Show. Created in part by and based on the stylings of stand-up comedian Jerrod Carmichael, who also plays himself as the show's protagonist, The Carmichael Show is a throwback in just about every sense of the word. It's an old-school multi-camera sitcom that seems like it ought to not work in 2016, given that for a decade or so, critically acclaimed TV comedy has been almost entirely the purview of single-camera shows like The Office or Happy Endings, with rapid-fire dialog and cleverly layered jokes that are easier to incorporate when you shoot a sitcom like a movie instead of a stage play. Those shows have become more diverse and relevant than ever, like when ABC's Black-ishtook on police brutality, or when Silicon Valley effortlessly lampoons the excess of our tech-driven economy.

Watching The Carmichael Show, though, is a lot like watching TV comedy step backwards to go forwards, looking to an old and out-of-fashion format to present progressive ideas in a palatable way. The Carmichael family in The Carmichael Show is a black, working-class one that speaks freely about racial and economic divides in America, the sort of perspective that the majority of television isn't all that concerned with. And for a brief moment, it looked like NBC, Carmichael's network home, wasn't all that concerned with it either. The show came dangerously close to cancellation despite critical praise and decent ratings, only to be saved at the eleventh hour with a third-season renewal.

Looking at the evidence, it didn't really seem like relevance was something that one of the oldest TV formats could really pull off anymore. Then last year, The Carmichael Show aired its six-episode first season, warmly, hilariously, and effortlessly taking on everything from racial profiling to how to support transgender family members you may not understand.

Most episodes of The Carmichael Show feature Carmichael's TV family arguing about both typical sitcom fare (think cheating partners) or more hot-button topical issues (like Bill Cosby, in the second episode of this season). The Carmichael Show succeeds not only because it is very funny (it is) but because of the way Carmichael talks about it: He talks about the show as a venue for conversations, and episodes as opportunity to talk about things. And that's what the characters do. They talk. Like normal people! Every character doesn't really get everything—just watch that clip about Jerrod's transgender brother—but they pick at things from all sides, finding empathy and humor with every nudge.

Given the last-minute nature of the renewal, it'll be some time before we find out when the show will return, but it's still got two episodes of season two to go—the last of which will take on Donald Trump. The Carmichael Show is a show that's both worth your time and respectful of it, a comedy that's doing things that television has neglected lately in order to talk about things few other shows would ever discuss.

It's long been said that a good TV show is like a guest in your home, full of characters that you want in your living room on a regular basis. Maybe things have changed, and maybe we don't really see TV that way anymore, but The Carmichael Show definitely does. The Carmichaels are good company. Say hello.

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